Climate change impacts forest functioning and dynamics, and large uncertainties remain regarding the interactions between species composition, demographic processes, and environmental drivers. There are few robust tools available to link these processes, which precludes accurate projections and recommendations for long‐term forest management. Forest gap‐models present a balance between complexity and

Seed dispersal is a fundamental process for plant communities, especially now that our changing world demands rapid colonization of new habitats. Long‐distance dispersal is especially important for plant population persistence and range expansions. The contribution of fishes to plant seed dispersal in aquatic ecosystems (ichthyochory) has long been overlooked. Although we know fish disperse seeds,

1. In herbaceous communities (which host many perennial species), belowground clonal organs and traits remain largely overlooked in ecosystem functioning studies. However, the belowground compartment is expected to play a key role as the greatest proportion of biomass is allocated belowground. Our main goal was to test whether including underexplored clonal traits (in‐tandem with widely used aboveground

1. The immunocompetence handicap hypothesis (ICHH) postulates that testosterone supports the development of secondary sexual traits while simultaneously suppressing immune function, creating a trade‐off between trait quality and pathogen vulnerability.

The role of multitrophic diversity in sustaining multiple functions simultaneously (multifunctionality) is still poorly understood in natural communities, especially in highly diverse aquatic ecosystems. Existing studies have focused on the effect of single trophic groups on ecosystem function and on individual ecosystem functions, neglecting the fact that multiple trophic groups are needed to maintain

Globally there is increasing concern over the biodiversity and economic losses associated with bush encroachment. The dominant species responsible for bush encroachment in Africa belong to the mimosoid genera Senegalia and Vachellia, with previous research identifying Vachellia as the more aggressive invader. We asked whether these genera have evolved different traits to enable germination and establishment

Resistance and tolerance are unique host defense strategies that can limit the impacts of a pathogen on a host. However, for most wildlife‐pathogen systems there are still fundamental uncertainties regarding 1) how changes in resistance and tolerance can affect disease outcomes and 2) the mechanisms underlying resistance and tolerance in host populations. Here, we first compared observed patterns of

1. Research on the effects of climate warming on ecological communities has focused on how temperature affects resource quantity. However, resource quality is also affected by warming, and changes in resource quality can have meaningful effects on the productivity of higher trophic levels.

1. Migratory fish populations, like salmon, have dramatically declined for decades. Because of their extensive and energetically costly breeding migration, anadromous fish are sensitive to a variety of environmental stressors, in particular infrastructure building in freshwater streams that increases the energetic requirements of the breeding migration and food declines in the ocean.

1. Intensified inter‐annual fluctuations in precipitation could profoundly impact terrestrial ecosystems. However, how changes in previous‐year precipitation influence current ecosystem functioning (e.g., resource use efficiency) in semi‐arid regions remains unclear.

Government policies attempting to slow the spread of COVID‐19 have reduced access to research laboratories and shifted many scholars to working from home. These disruptions will likely influence submissions to scholarly journals, and affect the time available for editors and reviewers to participate in peer review. In this editorial we examine how journal submissions, and editorial and peer review

Changes in phenology induced by climate change occur across the globe with important implications for ecosystem functioning and services, species performance and trophic interactions. Much of the work on phenology, especially leaf out and flowering, has been conducted on woody plant species. Less is known about the responses in phenology of herbaceous species induced by global change even though they

1. Insect parasitoids, and the arthropod hosts they consume during development, are important ecological players in almost all environments across the globe. As ectothermic organisms, both parasitoid and host are strongly impacted by environmental temperature. If thermal tolerances differ between host insect and parasitoid, then the outcome of their interaction will be determined by the ambient temperature

1. The ongoing climate change may strongly impact soil biodiversity with cascading effects on the processes they drive. Thus, it is of prime interest to improve our knowledge about responses by soil organisms such as collembolans to expected shifts in environmental conditions by considering communities comprising both detritivores and predators.

Animals are important vectors for transporting seeds, nutrients and microbes across landscapes. However, models that quantify the magnitude of these ecosystem services across a broad range of taxa often rely on generalised mass‐based scaling parameters for gut passage time. This relationship is weak and fundamentally breaks down when considering individual species, indicating that current models may

Since its conception over 100 years ago, the idea of the ecological niche remains a topic of enduring interest (Pocheville, 2015). The continued coexistence of multiple species and the myriad ways in which species adapt to, and survive, the environments in which they make their home continues to fascinate not only fully time ecologists, but those simply interested in the natural world. Among scientists

In Jäschke, Heberling, and Wesche (2020), the authors identified an error in Figure 3 after publication. The authors have determined that Figures 3(d) functional richness and 3(e) functional divergence were wrongly plotted due to a small error in the R‐code. The authors regret this error. This error does not affect the figure caption or the main text of the article. The corrected figure is reproduced